


Skipping Breakfast

by Spiffing



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Suicide, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:26:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21972061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiffing/pseuds/Spiffing
Summary: The sun, he swears, shines brighter when she's under it. But now it was too late. He was no use to anyone anymore. AU.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	Skipping Breakfast

**Author's Note:**

> I remember when I'd wrote this 8 years ago, I had been feeling really sad. Oof.

He skipped breakfast today. There wasn't much to skip anyway. He pushed the plate away. He wasn't hungry. He didn't feel hungry. He didn't feel much of anything really. He's been skipping many meals since that day. In his mind, there's no use wasting food on him, especially when he isn't hungry.

He never knew much about his relatives, not to mention his own parents. He lives with his parents of course but all they really do is argue, work and argue some more. He never wondered what they use to do before he was born except they were happy, judging by the discarded old photographs in the cupboard. Though he did wonder why they decided to have him, why they had never thought that having him around could be such a bother. Even though things such as food and clothes were getting better than what they use to be and bills are slowly getting paid, everything that has gone wrong (now and the past) was really all his fault or somehow he was the reason the problems began. It started when he first showed signs of magic at the age of three and while his father was enraged, his mother was joyful. It was perhaps the only time other than the day he received his Hogwarts invitation letter that he had seen his mother happy for him.

It wasn't until after his fifth year ended, sixteen years old and his friendship with Lily ended, that he wondered, really wondered, about his parents past, what their interests were. So he looked around the house for some clues while being discrete in his actions which wasn't a hard feat to accomplish since his parents never bothered with him or concerned with issues he was having at school; just as long as he achieved A pluses for Excellent in primary school and O's for Outstanding at Hogwarts.

There weren't many photographs. Some were of them at the beach or at some restaurant, a few were of their wedding at a little chapel on a pretty and remote boulevard and only two of when he was born. Since his father, after the mill closed down, finally stopped drinking and found a job, working at the local corner shop at the end of the street and mother was still a receptionist at the small medical clinic a few streets away, he waited on the day that they both had to work before making his way up into the attic. What he found there caused wonder and disbelief in him.

His search came to the attic which was accessible with a ladder propped up at the small opening, hidden in his parents inbuild wardrobe. There were many boxes of different shapes and sizes containing many things that would take more than the five hours he had to spend before his parents returned home. Some items weren't even contained. Some were broken. Some were unused. Most metals were rusted but some were preserved.

Tobias Snape was a soldier in the Second World War; the war metal, the special award and the photograph of his accepting it was proof. In his years that he was at school, he gained some awards from interschool sporting events. He was the sport captain for his house, The Marlins and looked positively ferocious in a few high school photos.

Eileen Snape, he already knew, was from a noble and old wizarding Prince family and had once attended Hogwarts, but he had never known that she had won various for leadership and the Potioneer of the Year Award. He held the Prefect badge in one hand while looking at the picture that accompanied it at his lap. He wondered who that handsome dark haired male Slytherin prefect, Tom Riddle, was who stood by the younger, happier looking Eileen Prince, the female Slytherin prefect.

He couldn't help thinking, once again, that his parents would have been happy without him. He does try to make himself as insignificant as he could but problems still arise and the arguments never ceased. He had stopped speaking to them altogether and avoided them like the plague. Come to think of it, everyone would probably be better off without him. Even Potter and Black say that he's in the way, that nobody wanted him, that he was useless. And having been sent to face a Werewolf by Black showed that they rather he were dead.

He dug deeper and found love letters, correspondence between his parents during the war, that both his mother and father had kept in their separate boxes but were now dusty, the words fading. He skim read a few, feeling bitter and depressed that he could never have something like his parents had had with Lily. He lost his chance when that dirty word slipped. If only Lily knew it was an accident. If only she saw things his way. If only she understood that the only way that he, a Half Blood from an ever lowering socioeconomic status could survive in the Pureblood supremacist ideology infested Slytherin house was to go along with them and appear to hold the same ideals. If only she saw that the Dark Arts were merely a personal interest to improve the defending against it. If only she knew that the reason he was sorted into Slytherin was because he was ambitions, his ambition to become a great and powerful wizard, to be acknowledged and all light. If only she knew he loves her...

He slowly and carefully placed the things he took out back where they came from, in the exact positions, order and tilts. He knew that if Lily ever knew all those things he had been unable to express, that Lily had already been losing interest in him. He had watched in sadness as she began studying prettier, handsome and popular boys on top of her academics. Her lose of interest in him, the amount of reproving she did, the number of times she actively ignored him for a long time infavour for her giggling fashion hyped Gryffindor female friends. He had watched in anger as Potter began lowering his wand and cutting back his insults in exchange for prancing around Lily, saying sweet, loving things that Severus himself wanted to say so many times but never did because he was afraid; afraid that he would lose Lily and her friendship, of rejection, of seeing her revulsion and pity. Her opinions mean everything to him. The sun, he swears, shines brighter when she's under it. Out of all the people in his life, he would do anything to be in Lily's life forever.

But now it was too late. He wished he could just take the uncomfortable, humiliating emotions, ignore the Slytherin code of conduct for at least a day, and tell Lily everything. No apology would work, no expression of hurt will be accepted as truth of pain, no good he will do from that point on would prove a thing. His life was nothing before he met Lily. His life is nothing now Lily has abandoned him.

He stepped into the kitchen, his stale toast still at the small breakfast table to which he ignored as he passed it. He opened the draw, his eyes taking in the sharp, pointed objects. He took one out. It was the sharpest, thinnest, smallest one out of the lot. He pulled back the sleeve and stared at the lines scarring his thin pale wrist. He held the weapon steadily, hovering above the abused bare flesh.

This time, he will press the blade down harder, pull it down faster, bleed out longer.

And so he did.

But of course free will was simply an illusion and he was meant to suffer longer since the day he was born because his father had returned home early that day, found him and called mother. And while mother's long and firm hands pressed against the slits and his father was elevating his arm, he couldn't help feeling a twinge of sadness that he could never be the perfect son no matter what he tried to do to please them. He was no use to anyone anymore.


End file.
